Craig & Sam Down Under

Hi Peeps!

Not a vast amount to report this week but I’ll do my best…!

You’ll all be pleased to know that I’ve managed to get over my farm wrecking spree and am now back on top form and haven’t broken anything for a whole week! This week it was Craig’s turn to cock up! Bless him, as he zips around the farm like Colin McRae on his gator if there’s a puddle to be explored you can guarantee he’s in it and this week he drove himself full speed into a nice green bog and got himself stuck! Back wheels were spinning but the boy was going no-where, they had to fetch a tractor to come and scoop him out – oh how I giggled as I went AROUND the puddle! Then on Friday we had a great time when they sent us out to spray a new area of the plantation where they’ve only just finished planting the trees. The ground is still really soft cuz the tractors haven’t been driving up and down there packing it in yet, so we had a right laugh getting stuck over and over again, I always managed to get myself out by myself but Craig had to be rescued by the tractor again! Haha!

On Wednesday night we went down to the pub to watch Australia play Uraguay in the World Cup Qualifiers and the Aussies won in a penalty shoot out, it was quite exciting at the end, not that the Aussie locals cared much. In fact, by the time the game finished there was only one local left in the pub and the only people cheering were 2 Brits, 2 Kiwis and a Canadian (some friends Craig made out on the plantation)!! It was an interesting evening all round really, some guys from the mango plantation came and had a few drinks and a chat with us which was fun, along with the other members of our little international group. A local farmer brought in a carrier bag full of mangoes from his plantation and showed us how to peel and eat them, explaining how you can tell when they’re ripe and stuff so we all went round to the tap at the outside of the pub and scoffed mangoes til there was juice every where and we had to get rinsed off! That was a bizarre experience but fun!

Then when we went back to the caravan park Craig went over to his mates’ tent and played ‘Slapping the Goon bag’. This is a game where you take a box of wine, remove the foil bag containing the wine (the ‘goon bag’ if you will) from inside and tear off one of the sides of the box to make it into a helmet. One person starts off by wearing the helmet and they slap the goon bag for as many times as they intend to drink from it. If you slap the bag twice, you drink twice etc. If you slap the bag twice but forget through the course of the conversation or whatever and then take 3 drinks, you have to wear the box on your head. If you slap the bag twice and drink twice you then have to throw the bag at another person in the game (and hopefully hit them in the face with it) and then it’s their turn. Weird I know, but it was created by a Canadian so …. y’know. Craig went to play, I went to bed. Craig returned an hour later with a belly full of wine on top of a belly full of beer. Needless to say he puked. A lot. In fact the whole of the next day he spent driving around the plantation leaving behind little piles of sick. A breakfast pile, a dinner pile, a few piles of juice and water… It went on. Eventually it took a steak dinner with mash, veg and gravy to set him right (Sam saves the day! no mean feat with only a 2 ring stove and a gas bottle – and note the mention of ‘veg’ of which he ate every scrap!). Teehee. Serves him right. Still, we live and learn and we live to play.

We went to Cairns yesterday and did some shopping, I got some new shorts and a vest top so I can get a whole load of new shaped tan lines all over me to add to that patchwork effect I’ve got. We also bought a little book of card games since there’s bugger all to do out here except drink and Craig’s off that at the moment and we’re fed up of bloody Rummy.

That’s about all that’s happened. We reckon we can carry on working out here for at least another 2 weeks so we’ve arranged to get our post sent on to us which will be very exciting. After that we’re just gonna try to string this job out for as long as possible cuz the money is good, tax is low and it’s cheap to live. The cash is slowly stacking itself up in the bank and we’re planning our next bout of travelling and looking forward to it lots.

Missing everyone at home, although not missing the weather – good luck in the frost! Ha! Average here is about 34-37 degrees still. We had 20 minutes of rain the other day. Suffer.

Love to y’all, keep the comments coming

Sam & Craig

Hello folks!

This is Craig’s second go at writing a blog (and Sam is watching me like a hawk!). What’s been happening? Urm! Well we left Townsville and headed north to Cairns to start looking for some work, cause we’re all out of spendies. We were in Cains for Sunday and we had a job by Wednesday. We phoned a hotline for travellers and backpacking folk wanting to work in agriculture and stuff and they were useless. However they did give us a labour service address. They were called GRUNT! what a nice name don’t you think? Anyway we went down to their office and spoke with a lady who is Shirl’s (sams mum) twin sister. Very scary to think there are two around! I can get away with that being on the other side of the planet. You can’t threaten me with mushrooms now! We signed on with them and the next day phoned us and offered us a job on a Mango Plantation. We agreed and drove an hour to an office in Mareeba for directions to the farm and then another hour to the farm which is in a quaint little (I emphasise the little) place called Dimbulah!

We went up to meet our new boss and find out what we will actually be doing because they were abit vague when it came to that part. We met the plantation manager whose name is Mark. Mark is a really nice bloke who comes from Zimbabwe, where the government kicked him off his farm, which is why he came to Australia. We started work on the Thursday and were greeted by Jeff. Jeff drives the tractor, Jeff has never shaved in his life, Jeff is missing his two front teeth and Jeff laughs like a hyena. Jeff is ace! He is the funniest guy ever. He is our mentor. He showed us what we were going to be doing.

We were given a 4×4 golf cart each which has a mechanical arm on the front to spray the weeds with. They are great. They are called Gators and have a 20hp engine so they are pretty quick. I have already been asked to stop driving it like its an F1 car but I can’t help it. Boys and their toys eh! However Sam on the other hand is not so good with machinery. In one week she has manged to 1 lose the filter on her Gator that filters the crap out of the chemical we are using 2 rip the hose that supplies the arm with water clean off the Gator and then run over it, and 3 when she took it to the shed where they repair stuff on the Gators she crashed her Gator in the shed door. IN ONE WEEK! Other than that we just drive up and down the rows all day spraying the weeds, so we get to enjoy the sun and listen to our Ipods but get paid for it.

Talking of getting paid, we got paid for two days work from last week and so when we went shopping we splashed out. We bought pillows, a bed sheet and a fan. Living it up in luxury. Penny has been pimped!

Dimbulah………Dimbulah, Dimbulah, Dimbulah!!! The place of ones. One caravan park, one pub, one phone box, one post office, one food shop, one butcher, one baker, one candlestick maker! Geeze, no wonder everyone is always in the pub there is nothing else to do. Unless you like looking at rock. There’s plenty of rock about oh and termite mounds plenty of them too. Even though there ain’t much going on the people here are great. They are dead friendly and it really has an ozzy feel about it. Our first night at the pub. We walked in and all six heads in the bar turned, a tumbleweed drifted by outside. I approached the bar and took a seat. The barmaid asked what we wanted “A VB please” the three men at the end of the bar, who couldn’t have made a full set of teeth between them began to snarl and growl at the words VB! One man pipes up “You do know where you are don’t you?” my reply “The pub?”. No laughter. “You’re in Queensland and here we drink xxxx” whoops my mistake. I had even been prepped on this before we left. “I will make that my next drink” says I. The bloke sitting next to us says ” You drink what you want, mate”. We got chatting to this bloke and it turns out that he is the owner of the bar! He asks our story and then tells us his and then introduces us to all the cleatuses at the bar. They decide to educate me in my naivety and dont let me pay for another drink all night. We spent six dollars (about three quid) and drank all night. Next time you are in a bar in the Australian outback try it you will either get your teeth kicked in or a free night’s drinking.

Sorry there has been a shortage of blogs we haven’t had much to write home about plus we didn’t think that there was any internet access in Dimbulah. The woman who owns the campsite has kindly let us use her pc! The campsite we are staying on is nice and really cheap due to its location. The first night we were here we saw wild roo’s bouncing through the woods at the edge of the site. The second night I went for a pee in the middle of the night and noticed the sky and how there were loads of stars out, so many it looked like there was a light nearby cause it was so bright. The residents on the caravan park are great. Watched Great Britain vs New Zealand in rugby leauge this morning. We trounced them 36-8. So me and an Oz resident are giving John the Kiwi loads of grief. Still upsets a few characters when the England cricket jersey comes out, which is always fun!

Well thats about it. If you like my blogs I want loads of support in the comments, that way I might be able to write more!!!!!!

Hello to everyone missing you loads.

Lots of love

Craig and The Wrecking Ball

Hi everybody!

Sorry it’s been such a long time since the last post, I like to think you’re all gagging to know what we’ve been up to! A lot of you have commented on how much I type in these comments and you should prepare yourselves for an extravaganza of an entry cuz this one’s gonna be HEOWGE!

I know I titled the last entry ‘Paradise’, but if I’d known then what I know now, I would have saved that title. Basically, you last heard from us when we were in Airlie Beach, overlooking the Whitsunday Islands. Although it was a gorgeous place and we had a fabulous couple of days sitting by the pool in beautiful weather (as well as a tropical storm which uncannily appeared about 10 minutes after I’d finished the last blog saying how hot it was!), we were both a bit miffed cuz the trips to Fraser Island and the sailing/diving trips around the Whitsundays had been so expensive. Last Monday we headed on up to Townsville, the last stop on our list for exploring before we went on to Cairns to start looking for work. Townsville was another day’s drive away and when we arrived we went to the visitor information centre to look for a caravan park to stay on for a couple of days. This is the usual routine for when we go to any new town, the visitor info people are so friendly they always help us get sorted and recommend good places to visit too. It’s always a bit of a struggle for me to drag Craig away from the dive tour stands and concentrate on finding somewhere to sleep, but this time I’m glad he picked up some leaflets!

We found a dive trip that went out on the Tuesday evening for 3 days and 3 nights, on a liveaboard boat which offered 10 dives on the Great Barrier Reef and the S S Yongala, all food and accommodation included in the price plus the opportunity to do our next dive qualification, the Advanced Open Water diver for a bargain price. We signed up on the Monday, were given our theory books for the course and spent all that evening and most of Tuesday swotting up for the course. We stayed on a lovely campsite with a generous receptionist who agreed to let us park the van up in the shade within the van park for free while we were away so we knew it would be safe.

It was about an hour and a half walk into the town and down to the Marina on Tuesday evening, it’s so hot up here even in the evening we were well sweaty by the time we got to town! We went to a sport shop to get Craig some swim shorts for under his wetsuit and the guy gave us a 10% discount, cuz the shorts Craig had picked had no price tag on so we took another pair, the next size up that did have a tag on for him to scan. He was well impressed with us, I reckon those weekends in scratalan must’ve been worth it!

Anyway we got on the boat at 8pm and had a little explore, met our fellow shipmates and had a safety brief and stuff. There were quite a few Brits as well as an American guy who we got chatting to and some other Swedish, Norwegian, Israeli peeps. The boat was called SeaEsta and was very very slow, we set sail at 10.30pm and travelled throughout the night to get to the reef. The next day we did two amazing dives on Wheeler’s reef, another one in the afternoon at a place called the Student Bommie and then returned to Wheeler’s in the evening for a night dive. We learned how to do Drift diving as part of the advanced course here cuz the currents were really really strong, so we had to be taken out to the reef in the dinghy and then let the current carry us back to the boat. The night dive was well scary and not as good as we’d hoped cuz there were quite a lot of us diving all in one group so it was a bit cramped. It was definitely a strange experience and not one I’d like to repeat for a while – I was far too concerned with staying alive and not drifting out to sea to really enjoy the reef at night!

The next day we had moved again to Davies Reef and here we did our Deep Dive for the Advanced course as well as underwater navigation, using a compass (I used my Dad’s compass ‘Bob’ – a faithful friend). Our afternoon dive at a reef called ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ was one of the best so far. The way the Advanced course is set up is so that you do 5 Adventure dives, the Underwater Navigation and Deep Dive are mandatory then you choose 3 more from a list of about 13 others. We had already done the mandatory ones as well as Drift and Night diving and wanted to do Wreck diving on the S S Yongala the next day. The Norwegian girls on the boat wanted to do underwater photography as one of their adventure dives so that afternoon the instructor took them out with cameras and we were left to go diving on our own. I was very nervous about it, but me Craig and and nice Aussie girl called Doreen went out on our own and it was amazing! We used the anchor line off the back of the boat to get to the bottom and used it as a reference point, then we swam around the reef using the current to help us spiral up and up into shallower water until we reached the surface. I had taken a compass bearing from the boat so I knew where it was and when we first reached the bottom, Craig took Bob from me (the compass!) to navigate around the reef. When we surfaced we both knew exactly where we were and the boat was where we expected it to be. Doreen had surfaced facing out to sea and had a little panic when she couldn’t see the boat but we turned her around and were so chuffed with ourselves for finding our way around we were ecstatic! We were even positioned up-current from the boat so we barely had to swim as we let the water carry us to the back of the boat. Fan-bloody-tastic!

We skipped the night dive that evening, all the newly qualified Open Water divers went out and the group was huge so we knew we probably wouldn’t enjoy it, plus we were absolutely pooped from all the other dives. I had been having little naps in between each dive cuz it just wiped me out! That night we moved dive sites again and on friday we dived on the wreck of the S S Yongala. This was the most amazing diving either of us has ever done. It was superb and the absolute highlight of the trip so far. The ship went down in March 1911 and wasn’t discovered until about 50 years later (look it up on Google if you want the whole story – it’s very interesting), it’s not yet known for definite how it sank but it’s now one of the most diverse reefs in the world. The whole ship is encrusted in reef and is home to a vast amount of different species of fish. We saw 2 shovel head rays (stingrays that look like sharks! AAgh!) two turtles, one of which was so big it must have been hundreds of years old, giant maori wrasse and so so many fish you wouldn’t believe. The first dive on the wreck was with an instructor but the second one we did with Doreen again and it was so satisfying. I could never dive again and still be happy that I’ve dived on the S S Yongala. Very happy bunnies all around!

Anyway, we spent a couple of days back in Townsville after that, recovering and sleeping and meeting up with our boat buddies. Now we’ve moved up to Cairns and are looking for work. wish us luck!

Love to all!

Hellodellyloo!

How is everyone? Comments are dwindling… where are you all? Emails? Texts? Is there anyone alive out there?! I’m sure you’re all having a lovely time sitting there reading these blogs but get off your asses and type some UK info people!

Anyway, since the last blog when we were in Caloundra, on Dicky Beach we stayed there until early thursday morning. We did the big pineapple monday, bush walk tuesday and on wednesday we went to the markets in Eumundi and we also visited Noosa Heads cuz it’s a nice place and we were close by. I bought a loverley new hairclip at the market cuz i lost my fave butterfly one back in Sydney and we met a nice drug addict who talked riddles to us and then left! Interesting. Noosa Heads was lovely, the sun came out (yay!) but unfortunately it was the kind of place you could throw money at so we didn’t linger long. Craig bought some new flip flops cuz his other ones died a death.

I have to point out that we get excited whenever there’s nice weather because it seems that the rain has followed us here and chased us up the East coast. Whenever we’ve bragged about sun on the blog or called home and talked of being sunburned, it has alsmost immediately begun to rain and stayed overcast for several days after, just to punish us. And, last time I said we hadn’t seen any creepy crawlies yet, well that was tempting fate too cuz that night we had a spider incident. Luckily we came away unscathed, which is more than can be said for the spider. We don’t know what type it was, but it was big.

Anyway, we set off nice and early from Caloundra and drove many many miles up the coast, stopped off in Hervey Bay (looks out onto Fraser Island) for some dinner. The water was crystal clear and it was so light that with the dark clouds above it looked strange, normally the sea is dark blue and the sky is light blue but this was upside down! It was very pretty, and the sea was so calm it looked like the end scene from ‘The Truman Show’. Sadly a trip to Fraser was way over our budget so we’ve had to overlook it for now. It’s a sand island which means you have to hire a 4×4 to visit it and the tour packages are extortionate, plus we’d have to either leave Penny somewhere or pay for her to go in storage, so Fraser will have to wait!

Anyway, we only stopped briefly in Hervey Bay before tanking on up the highway to Gladstone where we stopped overnight. That was the cheapest campsite we’ve stayed on so far but equally the most disappointing. In amongst the slack-jawed yokuls we did meet a nice family of Aussies though so that was nice. Another early start on Friday morning and we carried on heading North to Airlie Beach on the Whitsunday Coast, which is where we are now. The highway seemed to get very long and very very bleak. There were massive amounts of nothingness, trees, scrub, skies, mountains and road ( and regular spots of mashed kangaroo). It went on forever and we drove for about 8 hours so very tiring too. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn (look for it on the map) and entered the Tropical north when we finally made it to our destination and it’s exactly like the post cards. It’s very very hot and humid but the sea is blue like you’ve never seen, there’s palm trees everywhere, golden sands and I’m gonna stop before I entice more rain with my bragging!

We’ll be moving on again after the weekend and hopefully doing some more diving too, Craig keeps wearing his new fins and boots in the van, he’s so desperate to get back in the water it’s driving me crazy! Oh! and I bought a kettle. Yay! Tea! Lovely hot cups of tea! I used to have to wait for Craig to get the gas stove out in the evening before I could boil some water for a cuppa but now I just click and sup! Yay! You can take the girl out of Stoke…..! Hee.

Love to y’all. Please keep in touch.

Sam & Craig

PS One month gone already!!

Hello everyone!

As promised we moved on to Byron Bay after our last entry. It was a total hippy town with madfolk everywhere. There wasn’t much to see or do as far as sightseeing and tourist attractions go, it was mainly fancy cafes, restaurants, bars and hippy shops selling shiny stuff! We stayed from Thursday until Sunday morning and booked another dive for Saturday morning (look at the dive centre) www.byronbaydivecentre.com.au

We spent most of the time reading books, I went through one in just 2 days and Craig’s not far behind, having finished his Stephen King book and moved onto one by Micheal Moore. We’re so lazy! Saturday’s dive was down at Julian rocks just 5 minutes off the coast and this one was a huge success. The people were very friendly and patient with me and we had a great time. We saw a turtle and massive shoals of Dew fish as well as hundreds of other types of fish. The highlight of this one was when, having seen a pod of whales on the surface during the boat ride out to the dive site, we then heard them singing under the water. How cool is that?

For the following couple of days the weather has been a bit grim, we saw plenty of rain on Sunday as we drove up the coast to Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, which is where we are now and it has generally been very cloudy and overcast. A couple of people have asked who drives the van, it’s mainly Craig but he does let me have a go sometimes! When we were on the highway on our way to the Sunshine Coast I actually managed to avert a crisis quite neatly – bloody Aussie drivers not used to driving in the rain, started skidding all over the place and my superb driving skills saved us from skidding off into a ditch or running into the back of someone. Go me!

Anyway, we’re staying on yet another beautiful holiday park, this time with an ocean view. Yesterday we went to the BIG PINEAPPLE! Australia has quite a thing about big fruits and stuff, so far we’ve seen the big pineapple, the big banana and a big prawn !?!? The big pineapple was an actual pineapple plantation and they also grew tons of other fruits and stuff including Macadamia nuts. We went on a train ride around the park, fed more kangaroos, patted more koalas and talked to more birds. We had a go on the nut-mobile when we saw the Macadamia plantation and factory and went on a boat ride. We also got to go inside the big pineapple!

Today we drove out to the Glass House Mountains and stopped off at a major lookout to take some pics and then drove to Mount Tibrogargan where we did a 3.3km walk around the base of the mountain – our first experience of bushwalking! Sadly we haven’t seen any creepy-crawlies or anything like that yet, just lots of lizards.

Going to some markets at Eumundi tomorrow and then we’ll be moving on again! Not sure where to, we’ve got some map consulting to do later today when we’ll formulate a cunning plot. No need to worry, we stop off at Visitor Info centres quite often where there’s always a friendly old lady or two to liken us to her grandchildren and give us all the help we need!

Thanks a lot to Dad J for your humour-tips, Craig has started to berate me every time I leave the van in ‘midget – mode’. So cheers. I’d like to point out that he always leaves the camera strap in ‘giant-mode’. (We’re managing very well having only each other for company – honest!)

Love everyone lots, miss you all muchly, take care

Love Sam & Craig

PS Will Aunty Sharon pls say hello to Katy Smith, Trevor, Tubby & Kevin for us? Ta!

Hello!

Since our last entry we’ve moved on and done some more stuff…

Bye!

Just kidding! We visited the Koala sanctuary at Port MacQuarie where we got to hug koalas, they were the snuggliest, sleepiest little fellas ever. There was a baby koala there too, his name was Kerrie and he was born on the 10th of Jan this year! We saw a display about reptiles and had our photos taken holding a little croc, we also touched snakes and other weird crap. There was a massive kangaroo pen that we walked through and we went right up and touched them. There were some mummy kangaroos with little Joey’s in their pouches.. so sweet!

The next day we intended to go for a walk through the canopies of a rainforest nearby on a boardwalk tour but unfortunately the scale of the town map was a bit misleading. We thought we could walk to the park in about an hour and that it would take us about another hour to walk around the tour. Unfortunately after 2 1/2 hours of walking we though we were nowhere near finding the park so gave up. We stopped to have some dinner and while we were sitting at a little picnic area at the side of the road eating our butties the weirdest little reptile creature came waddling out of the bushes towards us. Well, I say ‘little’ it was about a metre long and it was fat and… waddly. Despite the wussy girlie type I normally am, I jumped up, grabbed the camera and started snapping away, it was amazing. Didn’t give it any of our sandwiches though. Anyway, we walked back to the caravan park where the van was and realised we’d probably made to about 10 minutes away from the rainforest park! Oh well. Maybe next time.

Next day we carried on driving up the East coast and stopped at our current location, Coffs Harbour. This is another holiday type resort but as all the kiddie-winks have gone back to school now it’s considered off-peak holiday season, so we’re staying on a lovely 4* caravan park for next to nothing, there’s a massive pool and a games room and everything. We booked up to do some diving while we’re here cuz it’s supposed to be the cheapest place on the east coast to do it and yesterday we got up at the crack of dawn to get down to the dive shop and get kitted out. We went on a 40 minute boat ride out to the Solitary islands, just off the east coast and on the way we saw whales, flipping their tails up and down and blowing water out of their spouty things – it was amazing!! Anyway, when we finally stopped at the dive site the water was really rough, very very choppy and salty and yuk. Craig jumped in and although the cold was a bit of a shock he made his way over to the rope and was waiting to descend. I jumped in and promptly had a panic attack. The roughness of the water made me feel really nervous and I couldn’t get my breath, so they dragged me back to the boat and I sat out. (Parents don’t worry I’m ok now and I’m gonna give it another go somewhere else where hopefully the water will be calmer – more details when I ring). Craig carried on, he got buddied up with a dive master, this mad little Japanese guy who did all funky tricks under the water and pointed out loads of cool stuff, so he had a good time even though he said he was disappointed that I didn’t dive with him (ah bless!). He saw 3 grey nurse sharks and some nemos and dorys. I’m well gutted that I wussed out and will definitely go next time!!

That all made for a pretty tiring day so we’ve been slobbing about by the pool this morning and snoozing all afternoon – can’t be bad! The sun was out so we’re burned to a crisp but the tans are coming along beautifully! We’ve been feasting on some culinary delights at night, spaghetti bolognese, chili con carne, chicken fajitas – all sorts now we’ve got the camping stove and fridge sorted out. I’m forcing veg down Craig’s neck at every available opportunity so rest assured that we’re eating well!

We’re moving on again tomorrow morning, going to Byron Bay next and hopefully will get another chance to dive there. Thanks for the emails guys, some of these internet cafe computers are way too slow to let us send our email, it just disappears so be patient and we promise to get back to you soon.

Donna – thanks for the mail, pregnancy suits you so chill about the big bump. Give Alicia a massive squeeze and tickle her ribs for me, so glad she’s enjoying school, you must be well proud. Give Craig a thump, hangover serves him right!

Shaz, Kev n K8e, loving the posts and Shaz, make sure everyone in Morrisons is v v jealous! ta!

Everybody take care, stay safe we love you loads
More next time so keep watching…

Sam & Craig

Since our last entry we have picked up PENNY! and shes beautiful and we love her dearly. We took her to Manly for our first night which was an experience. Sam was crapping herself whilst i was ready to rough it. We stopped on the beach front overlooking the sea and we woke up to the sun rising over the beach that was really cool.

The next day we set out to the Blue Mountains which was about two hours drive west of Sydney. We stopped in a place called Katoomba and went to Echo Point and saw the Three Sisters, the view was absolutely amazing you could see for miles. We do have pics but havent managed to get any online at the minute, though we are working on it. If you want to see pics sooner type in the place names into GOOGLE.COM and pics will come up.

After an hour in Katoomba and a gorgeous sausage roll (they are massive over here) we drove on to Lithgow and stopped there on a campsite for two nights. Anybody who has ever seen eight mile that film with Eminem in will know what this place looked like. It was trailer trash city, yokels living in caravans it was so funny listening to them, i say listening to them we couldn’t understand a word they said! Didn’t do much in Lithgow, managed to get ourselves set up with a stove and gas so we now have hot food, yey!
We did however have a first in Lithgow, first wash day! Clothes that is not ourselves, we did it by hand to save money and because we didn’t want to leave our clothes hanging up in cleatusville ( cleatus from the simpsons) we hung them up in our van. We then drove round town for an hour or so sorting out the gas and cooker and then buying food. It wasnt till we got back that we clicked that all our pants and socks were plastered over every window in the van. Classy!
Yesterday we spent 7 to 8 hours driving north to Port Macquarie which is where we are now. You pronounce it Port Mac-Quarry. We are now stopping on a Four star camp site with a pool and everything and here the weather is hot yey! We have just walked down the beach on the sand and let the water run over our feet and sam ran and squealed when the water came in. Oh dear! Shes not with me! but other than that Paradise!
Sam also wants to add that although the camp sites that we have stayed on have been very nice, in Lithgow we were in the country and it was very very dark at night so she was scared and when she needed a wee in the middle of the night and it was cold and scary, sam woke me up and decided to tell me she wanted a wee. Great! Being the kind, generous and wonderful man that i am i dragged my ass out of bed in the middle of the cold, dark and scary night to take sam to the toilet, she is eternally grateful. If thats not love i dont know what is!
Now onto the wildlife, since sam is kicking me until i say something about it. There re some crazy crazy birds knocking about. Im talking massive beaks multicoloured freaks that you see in a zoo, just flying around everywhere,wild! Also on our campsites there are bunnies everywhere running free. Sam says they are lovely, im thinking FREE MEAL! Some kids have the same idea and run around all night with a torch and net trying to catch one.

Later on today we are going to a Koala breeding sanctuary to see some Koala and Roos will let you know how we get on with that in our next blog as long as Sam doesnt die from the excitement in which case we will be on the next flight home one in a box and one in a seat.
Thats about all that going on with us at the mo. Thanks to everyone who leaves comments and sends emails keep on watching. Message to everyone, keep emailing us just to let us know what is going on in your lives. This is also a first for me, its the first blog i have been allowed to write all by myself. woo hoo go me! (Craig by the way). I have however been punched or kicked at every spelling mistake or poor use of grammar.

Missing everyone back home
Keep commenting and Emailing

Lots of love

Craig & Mrs Dundee

Hey everyone!

We’re still in Sydney and getting pretty fed up with Big-City Life. We haven’t met any English people yet! There are lots of Germans and Japanese people, plenty of annoying Americans but no Brits, booo! Still haven’t been called Bruce or Sheila, although we did overhear someone saying ‘Strewth!’ the other day. Teehee.

Since our last entry we have been continuing our tourist-ing around the city, trying to spend as much time as possible away from the hostel and visiting the free and cheap attractions in order to save money. On Saturday we went to the aquarium, saw some ace sharks and crocs, lots of nemo’s and dory’s (yay yay yay!) and lots of other cool stuff. That was our greatest extravagance so far at $21 entry each (about a tenner each) and we got to see Darling harbour too. We went on the monorail (2 quid each!) and instead of gettin off at our destination we decided to go aaaallll the way around just once and then get off where we planned to, just to make sure we hadn’t missed out on seeing anything! Then in the afternoon we went to the Police and Justice Museum, which Craig enjoyed immensely, pointing out how similar the cells were to those we have at home. Yesterday we went to some nice markets down at The Rocks and there was loads of gorgeous stuff, ornaments, photos, paintings so I’ve mentally decorated our imaginary home for when we get back!

The best thing we’ve done so far was last night and we have to say a massive massive thankyou to everyone who slipped us a few quid before we left, saying ‘have a drink on us Down Under’. Well, we certainly did and we did it in style, so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody! We decided it would be nice to see the harbour, the opera house, the bridge and the gorgeous walks down on the front by Hyde Park at night, but since our hostel is located on the outskirts of a particularly dodgy area, we weren’t feeling too confident about walking around at night. So we booked ourselves on a cruise ship for a 2 hour cruise of the harbour, with a 3 course meal and bottle of wine included, walked down to the harbour while it was still early and had a fabulous romantic evening on the boat before splashing out on a taxi back. It was a wonderful treat and the food was amazing. Craig had a prawn and noodle parcel to start, followed by fillet of beef (he reckons Aussie beef is better than the British stuff now!) and Sam had a tuna medallion on a bed of rice to start, followed by salmon fillet with chilli potatoes (mum you should be so so proud, I’m officially a fish-eater). We both had a blood orange sorbet for pud. There was a live jazz band on board and we’ve got some great photos of the sights at night. Thanks again everybody, it was awesome.

Now I don’t want to lower the tone here but there’s some other funny stuff to tell you. Firstly, as we were walking through the park the other day, there was a truck driving by carrying a load of rubbish and the slogan across the cab said “DIAL-A-DUMP” naturally we laughed and thought of Dad J. Then when we were in town, Craig over heard two Aussie grannies chatting (you have to try to read this with the Aussie accent…) “There’s flaming homosexuals all over the place down there, the little buggers are everywhere!”. Funny. We’ve found Gary Glitter – he’s living in the park down the road, shouting random crap at passers by (there are a lot of hobos in the city).

There’s a TV in our room so we’ve watched a couple of films as well as Oz Ready Steady Cook, Oz Survivor, and Oz Pop Idol, looking forward to the Oz version of Ladette’s to Ladies.

I’m just rambling now so gonna leave it there for today. Love you all (still) and hope everyone is well. Please keep us posted with whatever’s going on at home right now. Give Charlie, Sam, Marley and Louie lots of cuddles for us.

Sam & Croc Dundee

PS if you look at the image at the top of the page, the ferry in the bottom left hand corner of the picture is the same as the one we did our day time harbour cruise on last week!

Hi guys! Hope everyone is well and not missing us too much. First of all, thank you all so so much for the comments on our blog, it’s great to know you’re all watching, keeps some of the homesickness at bay hearing from you all.

The first hostel we stayed in, Wake Up (www.wake-up.com) was really really lovely, the room was clean, bed comfy and we had a locker each for our valuables in the room. Unfortunately it was quite pricey to stay there so we made a short list of cheaper hostels based on the info in our BUG guide and decided to visit them after the city orientation with the CCUSA rep. During the orientation the rep gave us a map of the city and said “do not go below this point on the map” and promptly ruled out the majority of the cheaper hostels. So we’re now in one called Forbes Terrace (www.g-day.com.au) which advertises free breakfast, free pancakes, free tea and coffee and free internet access. The net access is limited to half an hour am and half an hour pm. The kitchen doesn’t look fit to slaughter cows in and the showers are equally suspect. In short, it’s a flea pit and sadly we’ve paid up until tuesday next week as we were panicking about not being able to find anywhere to stay over the bank holiday weekend (i think monday is aussie labour day??).

However, on the happy side we’ve put down a deposit on a campervan. Rego is PLP 918 so we’re calling her Penelope (Penny for short). We’re picking her up on Tuesday and are planning a test trip out to the Blue Mountains for a couple of days. There are several guarantees with the van as we are buying it from a company called Travellers AutoBarn, rather than risking buying privately from another traveller. Parents please go to (www.travellers-autobarn.com) and read up about the guarantees, the buy-back service and the 12 months NRMA roadside assistance that we’ll be getting as part of the package. We’ve read all about it and have visited the NRMA office where they were very helpful, provided us with all kinds of maps and info and we feel very secure and supported in choosing to go with these companies- you should too. As for staying in hostels where possible, it’s probably not going to be an option very often as its so expensive, however we are looking into getting a list of free and cheap camp sites where we can park up securely with other travellers and use power and toilet/shower facilities, we know they exist, now we just have to find them. Don’t worry, we will NOT be parking up at a roadside in the middle of nowhere to sleep. This will NEVER EVER happen (memories of Wolf Creek still resounding strongly).

Anyway, we’ve been doing loads of walking to see the sights of Sydney and spend our days as far away from the hostel as possible. After the orientation on Tuesday we walked through Hyde Park and saw the Anzac Memorial. It was a case of – free touristy thing, we are tourists therefore we shall visit… off we went. It was actually a very touching memorial with a statue of three women holding up the body of a male soldier, placed at the bottom of a well so that all who look upon it must bow their heads. No photos so look it up on the net if you’re interested.

Last night we came back to the hostel for a nap at about 5pm and ended up sleeping thru til this morning about 6am! Oops! Jet lag hasn’t been too bad but we have been crashing out for naps in the afternoon and sleeping most of the night, giving us good early starts in the morning. This morning we went to finish sorting out bank stuff, we both have bank cards, funds, medicare cards, tax file numbers etc now so we’re pretty much set up.

Then we went for our free harbour cruise which was absolutely beautiful. The sun was out (yay) and the sky was very very blue, although the wind was still quite cold. There were lots of jelly fish in the water and we saw loads of houses of very very rich people (jammy gits). We’ve also now seen the Opera house and harbour bridge and got the traditional photos.

Other stuff… we visited the NSW Art gallery and saw a free exhibition, we’ve seen St Mary’s Cathedral and today visited Hyde Park Barracks, all free/cheap sights and very interesting. I think we’re gonna go to the police and justice museum soon as well as the australian natural history museum as it claims to have a bus-sized croc.

Will someone please tell Grandad Pete that we see about 20 parakeets on a daily basis flying and squawking their way freely around Hyde park as well as some freaky looking birds with heowge beaks. Awesome (and we think of him every time!)

Funny stuff… Dad, today I heard your Golddigga song being played here for the first time today, made me smile. The roads in the city are laid out in blocks so it’s not hard to find places but you have to wait 5 mins at every corner to cross the big roads. You push the button and while you wait for the green man it goes beep…..beep….beep…..beep….BEOWP!(meaning GO NOW!) bipbipbipbipbipbipbipbipbipbipbipb (think pacman/tommy gun – meaning HURRY UP!) always followed by lots of giggles from Sam. There are many many SJP wannabes in Sydney, lots of headcases for people watching, and we’ve come up with a common term for all those people who do the bridge-climb and the many many city-dwellers who think its fun to jog around Hyde park at 7am and stop at intervals to do boxercise with their personal fitness instructors – “Mad Bastards”. Hehehe.

Craig has bought a crocdile dundee hat. Yeah, I laughed too. Pics soon….

There was a parade through the middle of Sydney today for the Sydney Swans, some kind of sporting group who’ve won their premier league. It was a bit weird as we had no clue who they were and had to fight the crowds to get into the bank!

I’ve exhausted my brain remembering all that we’ve been doing so I’ll say tara for now.

Thank you all so so much for the comments you’ve been posting, can’t tell you enough how happy it makes us hearing from you. Love love love

Sam & Craig

Hello! For those of you who don’t already know, we made it to Sydney ok and we’re now fully set up in the hostel. Thanks to everyone who replied to our Tokyo message, it’s great to know you’re all watching.

Here’s some stuff we forgot to mention last time…
1. Craig left his mobile in the car and we didn’t realise til we got to the departure gate. Useful.
2. He also left his woolly hat at home
3. It’s cold here (ha ha for No.2) – bout the same as it was in the UK last week, warm when the sun’s out but otherwise overcast and cold 🙁
4. Sam actually ate sushi TWICE – go me!!
5. They tried to give us mushrooms with the breakfast on flight number one – if we didn’t know better we’d think our mum’s put them up to it.

So we’re in Wake-Up Hostel in the middle of Sydney, it’s very nice but also pricey so we won’t be staying on after tonight. We’re in a room with 2 Yanks and 2 Germans. The American girl is freakishly like Danielle and we’re both considering asking her who she really is?? The bed’s are lovely and comfy and we slept like babies from about 8pm last night til 6am today. Showers are hot, food reasonable and there’s plenty of info around to help us out.

I think we may have decided on a change of plan from the original ‘fly up to Cairns and start there’ idea. We’re now thinking of hunting down a camper van here in Sydney, we’ve seen some great deals advertised and we’re gonna do some research later. Cheap as the hostels are, they’re not that cheap and as it’s school holiday time here for another two weeks, flying anywhere is quite expensive and it’s really expensive to stay in Sydney for another fortnight if we decided to wait around. So we may well be driving UP the east coast by next week.

This morning we have an orientation meeting with the CCUSA rep so we should have tax file numbers by the end of today, allowing us to work. We’re also gonna see Sydney harbour on a cruise and hopefully a lot more of the major sights. So far city life has been a tad disappointing, it’s ok if you’re up for an 18-30’s kinda lifestyle but we’re looking forward to doing some real exploring on our own, without wasting our savings on booze (well, maybe not all of it).

Think that’s all for now, we’ll update again soon when we’ve seen more stuff and maybe moved into a hostel with free net access.

Love to everyone (still missing you muchly)
Chunky Monkey and Smidge